Line #74 Literature/CraftSequence


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/craft_sequence.jpg]]
2
3	The ''Craft Sequence'' is a series of novels by Creator/MaxGladstone, set in a world analogous to the present day but run using FunctionalMagic in general and MagiTek in particular.
4
5	The series is marked by characters who take an eminently practical attitude to some very freaky stuff: dead gods prompt intense legal wrangles, [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich-kings]] run a surprisingly reasonable form of government, and implacable [[HiveMind hive-minded]] things [[TheBlank with no faces]] are damn fine cops.
6
7	The ''Craft Sequence'' is a series in which the world stays the same, but each features a different cast dealing with different events.
8
9	[[WordOfGod The author]] says the gods are metaphors for corporations (immortal, powerful inhuman entities) and the magicians for lawyers (drawing power from contracts, rare knowledge and dead languages). For example, resurrecting a dead god is bankruptcy restructuring. The books bring out the bizarre and fantastic aspects of our present-day existence. [[https://archive.thinkprogress.org/two-serpents-rise-author-max-gladstone-on-magical-economics-and-manic-pixie-dream-girls-890751d3a700/ See this author interview]]
10
11	Novels so far:
12	[[index]]
13	* ''Literature/ThreePartsDead''
14	* ''Literature/TwoSerpentsRise''
15	* ''Literature/FullFathomFive''
16	* ''Literature/LastFirstSnow''
17	* ''Literature/FourRoadsCross''
18	* ''Literature/RuinOfAngels''
19	[[/index]]
20
21	There are also two {{Gamebook}}-style games, hosted on ''VideoGame/ChoiceOfGames'':
22	* ''[[https://www.choiceofgames.com/deathless/#utm_medium=web&utm_source=ourgames Choice of the Deathless]]''
23	* ''[[https://www.choiceofgames.com/deathless-the-citys-thirst/#utm_medium=web&utm_source=ourgames Deathless: The City's Thirst]]''
24
25	The ''Craft Sequence'' concludes in a sequel series, the ''Craft Wars''. The first book, ''Dead Country'', was released 2023.
26
27	See also ''Literature/EmpressOfForever'', an unrelated novel by Gladstone, which explores similar themes (parallels between myth/magic and technology, the balance of individual and collective power) from a sci-fi angle.
28	----
29	!!The series as a whole provides examples of:
30	* AerithAndBob: There are names like John Smith and Sam on one hand, mixed with names like Golan Varkath and Caleb Altemoc.
31	* AllMythsAreTrue: Discussed in ''Full Fathom Five''. Humans evolved from apes. Humans were also made from scratch by the gods. Every pantheon has its own creation myth? Every one of them is true simultaneously. Gods arise from ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve, and gods interact strangely with reality.
32	* AmoralAttorney: Most firms are owned by Deathless Kings, who understand the ''concept'' of morality, but do not often practice it. For Golan Varkath, even the concept is a little fuzzy.
33	* AnachronicOrder: The first five novels contain a number or ordinal in their titles that show when they occur chronologically. ''Last First Snow'', the fourth published novel, happens decades before ''Two Serpents Rise'', the second in both chronology and publication.
34	* BadassBureaucrat: Nearly everyone in the series.
35	* BizarreHumanBiology: The Deathless Kings are undead human skeletons that can still eat, drink, and have sex(...somehow).
36	* BurnTheWitch: In some places, during the God Wars and the period building up to them, people suspected of practicing Craft were killed at the behest of gods or by people who simply feared them. Elayne Kevarian narrowly escaped this fate before fleeing to the Hidden Schools and joining the war effort.
37	* CelestialBureaucracy
38	* ChillOfUndeath: Older Craftspeople who are at a point where they're animated more by Crafty willpower than by the usual biological processes but who aren't quite skeletal yet have a noticeably lower body temperature compared to a typical human. Elayne Kevarian is an example.
39	* TheCityState: This seems to be a common geopolitical structure, at least in the New World. Alt Coulumb and Dresediel Lex are the examples we've seen the most of in the series, and a few others have been mentioned.
40	* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: A fundamental principle of the setting's metaphysics; this is why GodsNeedPrayerBadly and why Craft works by pact-making and argumentation. As explained by Kai in ''Literature/FullFathomFive'':
41	--> ''"Reality’s made of self-perpetuating patterns, some of which are complex enough to alter themselves. Truth is a momentary condition of these fluctuating patterns, a matter of negotiation. Our agreements [...] are realer than any property of what you’d call matter. [...] Beliefs give rise to truth."''
42	* CrypticBackgroundReference: The series uses this technique often. Many of them do get followed up on; the King in Red, for example, was a name-drop in ''Three Parts Dead'' before being developed as a character in ''Two Serpents Rise''.
43	* DealWithTheDevil: Not exactly with the devil, depending on which hell you want to negotiate in.
44	* DeathOfTheOldGods: The God Wars saw most of the old pantheons killed off, and the infrastructural role of gods in society replaced by the sorcerers who did the killing. A handful of the old gods survived to the present day, with varying degrees of power; fire god Kos, for example, ended up a major player in the global economy thanks to remaining steadfastly neutral in the wars, while [[spoiler:Makawe, originally TopGod of the Kavekana pantheon, is not much greater than human now and spends his days incognito as a beach bum.]]
45	* DeityOfHumanOrigin: Most of the gods were born through belief. Thus there are multiple creation gods for different cultures.
46	* DemBones: The Craft can facilitate immortality, but eventually one's body degrades into a walking skeleton.
47	* DungeonPunk: In terms of culture, law, and economics, the world is almost identical to 21st century Earth — just with Craftwork devices for its technology. Alt Coulumb’s {{steampunk}} machinery is powered by its god of fire. Skyscrapers are cooled by harnessed air elementals. If two people share a god, prayer can take the place of telephones. Otherwise, they need to talk through something called a “nightmare telegraph,” which is exactly as harrowing as it sounds. The central MacGuffin of ''Literature/RuinOfAngels'' is [[spoiler: the world’s first space rocket, multi-stage, manned, and carrying a temporary satellite.]] But like 21st century Earth, these technologies come with dangers. Dresediel Lex will one day face a water crisis because its ruling Deathless King can't miracle it into existence like its late god of rain could. Materials required for Craftwork must be mined at cost, and inadequate safety procedures are causing irreversible environmental damage. And there are always people and nations exploiting such resources for their own gain, such as {{Undead Labor\|ers}} companies using {{Technically Living Zombie}}s enslaved by predatory contracts to keep them at work indefinitely.
48	* FantasyCounterpartCulture:
49	** The Quechal city Dresediel Lex is the Mexica/Aztec Los Angeles with droughts and a famous water-named sports team.
50	** Kavekana is similar to Hawaii (in the sense of being a small island nation that struggles with issues of independence and exploitation and attracts many tourists) and Switzerland (in the sense of being a tax haven and having a reputation for staying neutral in global conflicts).
51	** Telomere appears to be Italy. Temoc referenced a Telomeri legend in which the [[Literature/TheAeneid founder of an empire carried his father on his back]]. The empire was formed next to the 'Ebon sea', and its language shares at least one word ("Altus") with Latin.
52	** Schwarzvald is Eastern Europe/Germany, complete with Uberwalds, old traditions of people-eating witches, berserkers, and scary mobsters.
53	** WordOfGod is that Alt Columb a mix of New York and Paris: plenty of tall, stone skyscrapers, gothic gargoyles, a city-wide train system, and a pervasive Catholic-esque religion in the Church of Kos. Not to mention everybody smokes all the time.
54	* FunctionalMagic: The Craft and Applied Theology. Applied Theology is the practice of doing favors for a god (usually worship) in exchange for boons and power. The Craft, which was derived from research into Applied Theology, is essentially magically-enforced contract law, using starlight as a power source. The reason Craftspeople can fly? They struck a deal with the sky, a long time ago.
55	* GodIsDead: After the God Wars, most of the gods are dead.
56	* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: Technically they can survive without it, at least for a while, and use other resources from the material world to sustain themselves, but in order to be healthy and powerful a god needs to be worshipped.
57	* GreatOffscreenWar: The God Wars, a global conflict between Craftspeople and gods that saw most gods in the world killed and the Craft becoming the backbone of human society. Sort-of still ongoing in certain parts of the world.
58	** Other books hint at a prehistoric war in which an alliance of gods drove off an invasion of spider-like {{Eldritch Abomination}}s from deep space. Which are further implied to be coming back for round 2, only this time the gods are dead...
59	* GreyAndGrayMorality: The practitioners of Craft put forth good arguments as to why they oppose the gods, some of whom at least required oppressive worship and [[HumanSacrifice ritual murder]]. At the same time, the gods perform divine miracles that the Craftspeople can't duplicate, generally in actual service of the population, and uncontrolled Craft use will eventually render the world uninhabitable. Most everyone is just [[IDidWhatIHadToDo trying to do their best]] in an imperfect world.
60	* HoldYourHippogriffs: [[OhMyGods "Hand to any god you want to name"]], "pick a hell and burn there", etc.
61	* HumanoidAbomination: Every single deathless king.
62	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The first five novels have numbers in their titles: ''Literature/ThreePartsDead'', ''Literature/TwoSerpentsRise'', ''Literature/FullFathomFive'', ''Literature/LastFirstSnow'' and ''Literature/FourRoadsCross''. Though they're not sequential in their publishing order, the numbers in the titles indicate the actual timeline within the story, meaning that ''Literature/LastFirstSnow'' details the earliest and ''Literature/FullFathomFive'' the concluding events of the first part of the series. The sixths book, ''Literature/RuinOfAngels'', does not follow that naming convention because it is the beginning of part two of the series as well as of an overarching continuous timeline.
63	* IndividualismVsCollectivism: One of the, more subtle, aspects of the conflict between the Craftspeople and gods. The Craft is great at allowing you to throw off any claim a higher power might have over you and forge your own fate, at granting great understanding of the deep workings of the universe, and at realizing your full potential. It is, however, by nature [[EquivalentExchange transactional]] and the unfettered pursuit of one's own path, [[{{Ubermensch}} without any constraints]], tends to turn even the better Craftspeople callous and manipulative. In contrast, gods have a sheer power that allow them to accomplish feats that provide for their people in a way a Craftsperson can't, enabling to ''sustain'' a society more capably than a Craftsperson. Their power comes from the ''collective'' belief of their people and their religions creates community, all of which foster communitarian values. Nevertheless, worshippers are not free in the same way Craftspeople are, the bounty of the gods tends to stifle innovation, and in some theocracies the cost of the individual for the good of the whole can be [[HumanSacrifice quite brutal]].
64	** Ironically, it's said that the founder of the Craft laid out its theory and foundations in a text titled ''[[Creator/KarlMarx Das Thaumas]]''.
65	* LovecraftLite: Some gods are frightening, incomprehensible creatures with a taste for human souls, but can be contained with the help of a good contract. The Iskari are ruled by [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos squid-headed gods]] and close contact with them can be [[MindRape bad for one's brain]]. However, the Iskari seem to be one of the most prosperous and well-functioning societies in the setting.
66	* MagicallyBindingContract: The Craft and Applied Theology are both powerfully rooted in these, to the extent that "powerful magic requires as much lawyerly skill as sorcerous ability" can be called a key conceit of the series.
67	* TheMagocracy: Societies not ruled by gods and their priests are ruled by powerful Craft practitioners who use their abilities to provide for and defend their subjects. Since magic, law, and economics are more or less the same thing in this world, a ruling elite of people versed in magic is perhaps inescapable.
68	* MundaneMadeAwesome: the premise of the series.
69	** ''Literature/ThreePartsDead'': Courtroom drama about the resurrection of a dead god - aka a corporate bankruptcy proceeding. Necromancy in general seems to be highly akin to the restructuring of finances and debt that occurs during the bankruptcy process.
70	** ''Literature/TwoSerpentsRise'': Risk management about demon infestations in the water reservoir.
71	** ''Literature/FullFathomFive'': Banking overseas where priests sacrifice chickens to ensure your investments are going well.
72	** ''Literature/LastFirstSnow'': Gentrification protest [[spoiler:and corporate-grade insurance fraud]].
73	** ''Literature/FourRoadsCross'': Further legal complications ensue from the resurrection of the same dead god [[spoiler:two, actually]] from Three Parts Dead - namely, the fact that gods are massive, interlocking parts of the economy, and yet experience "human" emotions like love or friendship, threatens to create a global credit crisis.
74	* NayTheist: Craft practitioners in general tend in this direction; it helps that "derive the existence of gods from first principles" is a standard homework exercise at the Hidden Schools. Tara in particular explicitly refuses to worship the goddess who plays a major role in ''Literature/FourRoadsCross'', but is willing to consider a partnership with her.
75	* TheNecrocracy: Most New World states are governed by skeletal Craftspeople, hence the term "Deathless Kings" (or Queens, respectively). Technically there's no formal requirement that one be undead in order to hold such a position, but most of those powerful and experienced enough to do the job are.
76	* {{Necromancy}}: An important branch of Craft, used for everything from raising [[UndeadLaborers simple revenants for menial labor]] to restructuring dead gods.
77	* OccultLawFirm: Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone and Kelethres Albrecht & Ao so far. Due to the relationship between magic and contract law, a lot of Craftspeople become lawyers.
78	* OddJobGods: Provides a few examples, like the goddess that sit around heckling poker games in Literature/TwoSerpentsRise. Since the Gods in this world are their own sort of living thing that grow and change with time, this is ideally a sort of "summer job" for a young god on their way to a more impressive deific career.
79	* OurLichesAreDifferent: The Deathless Kings. Some of them are literal Lich Kings ([[UnisexTropes and queens and other]]). Some of them are Lich [=CEOs=] or Lich Chancellors, or just as often [[OccultLawFirm Lich Senior Partners]]. They play the core tropes of lichdom pretty close, being fleshless sorcerous skeletons. The first major twist is that they don't come about through some dark ritual-- "lich"dom (they're NotUsingTheZedWord) is just a natural part of a Craftsperson's lifecycle. The second is that there's nothing inherently evil about it-- though the culture around the Craft has a wide Nietzschean streak that doesn't serve very well as an ethical foundation, so a lot of them are non-inherently evil anyway.
80	* OurSoulsAreDifferent: You can sell just a bit of your soul for a cup of coffee. In fact you have to, as “soulstuff” is the currency of and basis for the whole economic system. One human soul is made of 2,000 units of soulstuff. You can actually have more or less than that (it’s like having cash in your purse), but having too much soulstuff in you makes you go kind of weird and having too little makes you increasingly less alive. Small amounts of soulstuff naturally "soak" into objects that get handled a lot/have sentimental value, and if it hasn't sunk in too deeply can be pried out again with some effort. Receiving soulstuff gets you brief impressions of its original owner's memories.
81	* PhysicalGod: Real enough to be killed and resurrected.
82	** PhysicalReligion: Thus, almost every religion is one of these. The exceptions arise from followers of gods who fell in the Wars continuing to observe old rites and practices out of respect for their gods' memory or because doing so is personally meaningful to the practitioner.
83	* RageAgainstTheHeavens: The series is set in a world recovering from the God Wars, in which human magic users challenging gods for the right to exercise their powers freely escalated into a global revolution involving the overthrow and killing of many gods and the birth of the world's first god-free civilizations.
84	* ResurrectedForAJob: Death isn't all that meaningful to the big players of the Craft Sequence and they'll gladly bring back the dead, from lowly peasants to be zombie slaves to gods that will be reshaped for a new role (happens to the moon goddess Seril who was revived as the blind police goddess Justice to provide power to Alt Columb's security force).
85	* ResurrectionSickness: Resurrection will always reduce the individual on the receiving end; there is only so much order and energy in a corpse, and getting a body up and walking will require making subtractions or substitutions elsewhere. As such there'll always be something missing, sometimes (often) deliberately.
86	* RetiredMonster: The Deathless Kings are terrifying figures who brutally slaughtered gods in the past, but then realized that in their absence, ''someone'' needed to take care of making sure garbage was collected and people had drinkable water, and so for the most part, they've settled down since then.
87	* SchizoTech: Because of the influence of the Kos and his church and the Craftsmens' magitek inventions, Alt Coulumb has steampunk air conditioning and central heating, as well as golem horse wagons for taxis. Their understanding of physical science, legalism, economics and finance is 21st century level. But they still use sail-based ships and bow and arrows.
88	* SheIsTheKing: "Deathless King" is a gender-neutral term.
89	* SpellConstruction: Some applications of Craft require this, although the kind and degree varies tremendously. In general, the more complex a work of Craft is and the more permanent the effect is intended to be, the more likely it is that special tools or sigils of power will be required.
90	* StarPower: Craft uses starlight as an energy source. The stars are also said to be the origin of the human soul (which, of course, is also a Craft energy source). The Quechal have a decidedly more ominous perspective about the nature of the stars [[spoiler:which is apparently also true]].
91	* ThematicSeries: As mentioned above, the series shares a world and the broad strokes of its history, but it follows different people through unrelated events, far enough apart geographically that the culture is pretty different too.
92	* UndeadLaborers: People who die in debt or who simply incur so much of it that they no longer have enough soulstuff to support full human consciousness may become zombies and work off their debts in that state. In Craft-based societes, work on industrial-scale farms, janitorial work, freight handling, and other forms of menial labor are often performed by zombies. It is possible to recover from being a zombie and become a living, autonomous person again, but being a zombie for a long time is often traumatic.
93	* UnequalRites: There are two fundamentally different ways of working magic. First came Practical Theology-- making (''[[MagicallyBindingContract very binding]]'') pacts with gods, who in return for worship both worked direct miracles and empowered their priests as divine spellcasters. Then, much more recently, the Craft was developed-- magic woven from starlight by pure human will. A nearly-genocidal ([[spoiler:nearly omnicidal, in fact]]) series of God Wars ensued between practitioners of the two arts. Craftspeople won, but the terms of the peace were at least tolerable for most Theologians and their surviving Gods.
94	* WizardingSchool: The Hidden Schools, where Craftspeople are educated, evolved from relatively mundane universities and libraries that became targets when the God Wars created a backlash against academia in general. Despite the plural, it's not clear whether the term refers to one institution or many.

Context Literature / CraftSequence